Physicians Write a Prescription for Paperwork
MEDIFILE© KEEPS TRACK

By Kira Vermond

When Dr. Christe Ferguson joins her first family practice in Peterborough, Ont., this month, she plans on running a completely paperless office. No paper charts, no sticky notes, binders, e-mail printouts or prescription pads.

The reason? No Time. It gets a lot more complicated than it appears. People think you have a doctors office – no big deal. But there's all this paper behind the scenes. It gets really annoying, she says.

While the Peterborough Clinic, with its 40 physicians (about half are family doctors like Dr. Ferguson, the other half are specialists), looks like any other large clinic on the outside, it is the inside that appealed to Dr. Ferguson when she went searching for her first practice.

Just over a year ago, Dr. Ron Curtis, another family doctor in the clinic, helped spearhead a project that brought MediFile©, an integrated software program dedicated to the medical field, to the office. MediFile© was created by Edmonton-based Jonoke Software Development Inc. to help doctors control the paper chase. With it, they can send e-mail, write prescriptions, send referrals or examine what other doctors have written in a patient's chart without leaving the platform.

Office staff can also use the same system to schedule appointments or manage finances. "The information technology changes are coming. We just wanted a head start," says Dr. Curtis. "It takes a while at first, but the payback is tremendous."

Since Dr. Ferguson will be new to the clinic, she will not have to transfer all the paper data from years back. Instead, she will be starting fresh.

One of the main benefits of using MediFile© system, she says, is that it cuts down on duplicating work. Instead of writing a prescription on a pad for a patient, then copying that information into her own files to be sure she has a record of it, the e-system means she only types the information once. She then hands the signed printout to the patient and knows the information is stored on the system.

In the old days, if you were in a rush one day and you just wrote it on the pad and not your book, it was gone forever, she says.

It also means she has an easily accessible record of every medicine she has prescribed.

Moreover, pharmacists have a reason to rejoice as more doctors sign on to electronic programs. "No more illegible handwriting. I'm sure the pharmacists love it for that. Half the time I'm sure they don't know what drug to prescribe or how much because people's handwriting is so awful. [The program] makes it very standardized," Dr. Ferguson says.

Dr. Curtis, however, thinks the systems best aspect lies in its ability to help doctors track their patients. If your patient has diabetes, you can use the reminder services to know to call your patient after three months and say, 'How are you doing?' he says.

Another bonus, says Dr. Curtis, is the fact that every doctor who sees a particular patient adds to the same chart. So when a physician pulls up a chart before seeing a patient, he or she instantly know what everyone else has said about the patient in the past. Using the old system, coordinating charts could take as long as three weeks if another doctor had to put the notes in the mail. "Everyone's on the same page," he says. While the MediFile© system can take a long time to set up, there is another challenge doctors face when using it. Mainly, how to interact with patients when a computer sits in the same room – sometimes between patient and physician.

"You need to remember to look them in the eye and not at the computer screen," says Dr. Curtis. Still, shortening the paper trail is what draws Dr. Ferguson. She says that anything that can reduce the time doctors spend on paper-work over the long run is worth the time spent learning the system. After all, some doctors spend as much as one full day a week doing paperwork. Considering Peterborough's current family doctor shortage (it is estimated that 100,000 Peterborough residents do not have a family doctor), she knows she will be busy. "Spending a day on paperwork will not be an option. Most of us didn't go into medicine to do paperwork. So this is perfect because you still have to do it, but it just makes it that much quicker," she says.

From Financial Post, Tuesday August 8, 2000, Section E5